Search Results

Abstract:
Dolphins are being spotted in harbours, canals in Venice have never looked so clean and the temporary ban of corridas has spared the lives of a hundred Spanish bulls. Looking at the bright side of things is an admirable quality, but we should not get too carried away with the idea that COVID-19 is good for the planet.
Besides the anecdotal phenomena quoted above, the collapse of mobility and economic activity induced by COVID-19 are generating meaningful short-term consequences for the environment. These include a sharp reduction in Hubei’s and Northern Italy’s air pollution levels and a likely reduction in global CO2 emissions in 2020.
Rejoicing over such news rests on a short-sighted view. The interlinkages between COVID-19, energy and climate issues are so complex that we are actually looking at a mixed bag of consequences.

Abstract:
Oil markets are facing a perfect storm.
The scissors of supply and demand
are moving against one another,
generating increasing pain on the oil
industry and the political and financial
stability of oil-producing countries.
Global oil demand is dropping due to
the recession induced by the COVID-19
shut down of economic activity and
transport in the most industrialized
countries. Goldman Sachs predicts that
global demand could drop from 100
million barrels per day (mdb) in 2019 to
nearly 80 mdb in 2020.1
If confirmed,
this would be single biggest demand
shock since petroleum started its race
to become the most important energy
source in the world.

Abstract:
Prevention strategies warrant more attention and can be a framework to apply to situations with different levels of urgency. The cases of the Arctic, the Sahel and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the value of prevention strategies in diverse ways.
Anticipation is closely linked to prevention, and we should do more to understand how the future may unfold, and then act on the findings to help us to prevent crises and conflict.
The interaction of issues often lies at the centre of the policy challenges we face today. It is necessary to unpack these interactions in order to strengthen our responses.
Surprises cannot be entirely avoided, but we should place more emphasis on considering the implications of crises and ensure better integration of our approaches across the short, medium and long term.

Abstract:
This year the world will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations. But celebrations recognizing this historical landmark will occur at a time when the entire post-1945 structure of human rights, humanitarianism and multilateral diplomacy are under threat. Not since the UN was first formed have so many people been displaced by persecution, conflict and war. Not since the peak of the Cold War has the UN Security Council appeared so bitterly divided and incapable of decisive action. And as a new decade begins, there are renewed threats to international peace and security, and fresh assaults on human dignity.

Abstract:
In his treatise on southern politics, V.O. Key Jr. wrote that “in state politics the
Democratic party is no party at all but a multiplicity of factions struggling for
office. In national politics, on the contrary, the party is the Solid South; it is, or
at least has been, the instrument for the conduct of the ‘foreign relations’ of the
South with the rest of the nation” (Southern Politics in State and Nation [New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949], 315). In an early (and laudatory) review of that
book, Richard Hofstadter suggested that Key missed an opportunity to fully
consider whether the South had affected national politics in more ways than
through the reliable delivery of Democrats to Washington, but he noted that
this might require another book (p. 7). David Bateman, Ira Katznelson, and
John S. Lapinski have written that book. Southern Nation examines how the
South influenced public policy, Congress, and the development of the American
state from the close of Reconstruction to the beginning of the New Deal. The
authors focus on the region’s role in national politics at a critical juncture when
industrialization and a rapidly changing economy required new policy solutions.
They show that the white South used this opportunity to rebuild its place in the
federal government, secure home rule, and shape the national agenda

Abstract:
Survey data consistently show that large swaths of the American electorate favor restrictionist immigration policies. Politicians at the state and national levels regularly campaign on promises to crack down on undocumented immigration and discuss immigrants as a source of crime and a drain on resources. They are often rewarded at the ballot box for doing so. Yet these facts coexist with another trend: relatively few municipal governments pursue restrictionist policies at the local level. In fact, even in places where the GOP dominates, policies that accommodate immigrants are more common than policies designed to drive them away.

Abstract:
How do international migrants affect their origin countries’ politics? Drawing on evidence from the cases of Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, Migrants and Political Change in Latin America argues that migrants gain new attitudes and economic resources as a result of experiences in their receiving countries that they then transmit to their origin countries through economic and social remittances and through return migration. Jiménez claims that by transmitting resources and ideas through these three channels, migrants create changes in the politics of their origin countries that they never intended or envisioned. These effects are mediated by local conditions in origin countries such as levels of education and wealth. Moreover, the social networks in which both types of remittances and return migrants are embedded augment their political effects.

Abstract:
In the study of candidate emergence, the cost term in the utility calculus has been of central concern. In this book, Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd makes a valuable contribution to the study of candidate emergence and campaign finance by considering how legal complexity increases the cost term in the emergence calculus. Grounded in complexity theory, she employs complexity measures of entire sections of state campaign finance laws to test whether candidates are deterred from running for office by the costs incurred in learning and complying with campaign finance law.

Abstract:
In this book, former CNN analyst and current George Mason University professor Bill Schneider offers his take on the causes and implications of the growing partisan divide in the United States. Conflict exists between the “New America,” a product of the 1960s that “celebrates diversity in age, race, sexual orientation, and lifestyles” (p. 11), and the “Old America,” consisting of the “mostly white, mostly male, mostly older, mostly conservative, and mostly religious, and mostly nonurban,” (p. 2) which longs for the days when “the country was whiter, men were in charge, government was smaller, and religion was more influential” (p. 117). This rift is reflected in the parties and politics of the nation (it is easy to see how the “New America” is representative of the Democratic coalition and the “Old America” of the Republican Party), ultimately leading to the populist backlash that elected Donald Trump in 2016

Abstract:
FOR DECADES NOW, political scientists, journalists, campaign
managers, and pundits have sought to predict the outcomes of elections
well in advance of the day the votes are cast. As the ultimate office in the
U.S. political system, the presidency has been the focus of much of this
activity. Since the late twentieth century, a number of prognosticators in
the discipline of political science have used forecasting models to predict
presidential elections. These models have become visible in pre‐ and post‐
election coverage, and a sort of competition has emerged to produce the
most accurate model whose variables offer the greatest amount of
forecasting lead time before the election. Once considered “recreational
political science,” forecasting presidential elections has become a cottage
industry. Furthermore, the attention paid to the accuracy of these models
has led to better explanations of election outcomes and allowed
interested persons to see patterns in elections that are stable from year
to year and to identify outlier elections and the factors that led to unique
election outcomes.